Posted on by bdamage1
Brian Damage
This is the 12th installment of our ‘Wrestling With Sin‘ series. It looks into the darker, perhaps at times…seedier side of pro wrestling. Some stories involve sex, drugs, arrests, fights, rape and even murder. As with all of the Sin pieces…I do not condone nor do I condemn the alleged participants involved.
Paul Heyman
In 1992, Paul E. Dangerously (Heyman) was voted Pro Wrestling Illustrated Manager of the Year for his work in WCW. The following year Heyman was fired from the company. What happened? How could Paul Heyman be on top of the wrestling world one year and be tossed away the next? The answer lies with the man in charge of WCW at that time…Bill Watts.
According to Watts, Heyman spent some time falsifying expense reports while on the road for WCW. He would charge WCW for hotel rooms…but allegedly was staying at a girlfriend’s home instead. Watts had apparently hired a private detective to follow Heyman and gather that information.
On the other side of that, Paul Heyman claims that Bill Watts wanted to get Heyman out of his high paying contract and concocted a phony story about his misdeeds. Heyman retaliated with an anti-Semitism lawsuit against Watts and WCW feeling that Watts fired him because of his Jewish background. Heyman won the case and was awarded a nice settlement.
Baby Doll
She was considered by Tully Blanchard as… “The Perfect Ten.” Nickla “Baby Doll” Roberts was a valet/manager for Jim Crockett Promotions in the 1980’s. She was involved in several hot angles involving Blanchard, Dusty Rhodes and Ric Flair. While she was quickly becoming a top manager within the company…things quickly fell apart for her when it was discovered that Nickla was dating mid carder Michael ‘Sam Houston’ Smith. According to some Dusty was furious and warned her not to marry Smith.
Things got so out of hand, Dusty allegedly called Michael Smith’s father…former wrestler himself ‘Grizzly’ Smith to try and talk to his son and prevent the couple from getting married. Despite Dusty’s attempts…Smith and Baby Doll got married. As punishment, Dusty sent her packing to the Central States territory. After a couple of years of exile, Baby Doll returned to Crockett’s promotion to manage Larry Zbyszko in 1988.
An angle was concocted for Baby Doll to give a “Kiss of Death” to Dusty Rhodes…she was to give a long kiss to Dusty signaling the beginning of the end for ‘The American Dream.’ When her husband Sam Houston found out about the angle, he went into a jealous rage. Sam at the time was working for JCP’s rival the WWF.
The angle went ahead as planned, but instead of giving Dusty a kiss, she slapped him and ran away. Seeing this action as insubordination, Baby Doll was immediately fired and blacklisted from the company. Her and Sam Houston eventually divorced in 1995.
Chyna/Triple H/Stephanie McMahon Love Triangle
Triple H and Chyna were legitimately romantically linked to each other for years. It wasn’t until a storyline that had Triple H involved with Stephanie McMahon that life began to imitate art.
In what seemed like a storyline right off of Raw, Triple H and Stephanie began an affair that lasted well over a year. Chyna started to become suspicious of Triple H once he started acting differently towards Chyna. According to Chyna, she began snooping through Triple H’s belongings and found a love letter written by Stephanie to him.
Chyna immediately called Vince McMahon to tell him about the affair and found out Vince was already aware of the couple’s indiscretions. The next Monday before a Raw taping, Chyna met with Vince to discuss the situation. According to Chyna, Stephanie was cold and callous about the situation and Chyna threatened Stephanie with bodily harm. Vince sent Chyna home and soon after was let go from the WWE. In what seemed to be an act of revenge, Chyna started having an affair and a relationship with Triple H’s friend Sean ‘X-Pac’ Waltman.
Jerry Estrada
There is an urban legend involving Jerry Estrada who was a famous luchador who competed throughout Mexico and briefly for the WWF. His career spanned over 25 years and was successful despite never donning a traditional lucha mask. Jerry had a tremendous reputation inside the ring…outside of it however….it was allegedly pretty sketchy. According to some, Jerry had a cocaine problem. One night in a hotel room in Tijuana, while binging on cocaine and booze with a hooker, Estrada became paranoid and allegedly threw the hooker off the hotel balcony. For now, I’ll chalk this story up as an urban legend…although some have sworn that it did in fact occur with a huge cover up.